Why Does Everyone Lose Money on Facebook Advertising

If you haven't tried Facebook ads already and you know a lot of people who have, you probably don't want to. They're uncharted waters, and many before you have failed. At least once or twice, sometimes even from business professionals, you've probably heard plain and simple that Facebook ads don't work. Everyone who tries just loses their money with minimal results. First, let's dispel that myth. Not everyone fails on Facebook marketing. It is a highly effective platform, but only if you succeed in utilizing it's tools properly.

1. They Don't Test Their Audiences

Audience testing is going to be the very first step you use to build on your Facebook ad campaign success. The target audience you choose through Facebook will vary based on your industry and business type, and who you're trying to reach with your product. Facebook provides many factors to consider when selecting an audience for your first ad:

-Demographics-Based on demographic factors like age, gender, job title, level of education, and more.
-Interests-Audiences hobbies, interests, and likes
-Behaviors-Behavior patterns typically followed like purchases, website visits, and using a certain device

When you first begin figuring out your audience type it will be anything but easy. It may involve some guesswork and gouging your competitors. Audience testing is the crucial element for long-term success in targeting.

How to Test Your Audience

To test your audience, you'll need to create several separate ad sets. In each one choose your targeting factors. For the best gauge of success, create at least 8 to 10 different sets, and monitor each one's performance using your ads manager.

Over time as you monitor the performance of each ad, look and see which ones are performing best, based on your goals. Are your target audiences visiting your page, engaging in your posts, or finally making purchases?

Keep the audiences that perform best.

2. They Don't Utilize Lookalikes and Customs

As some of your ads begin to perform, entering the ads manager will reveal that you can actually create custom and lookalike audiences. To do this, simply visit the audiences tab in your Facebook ads manager. From there, you can select from custom or lookalike audiences.

Custom audiences are more or less "warm audiences" who have already performed some action on your page in a set period of time. You can choose to market your ad to people based on many factors, including those who have engaged in your posts, visited your website, or watched a certain length of your videos. This is a great way to put your ad in front of people who are already familiar with your brand.

A lookalike audience varies from a custom audience in that it is essentially a "smart" audience more or less cloned from a custom audience. Your custom audience requires 100 members or more, before you can create a lookalike audience. Creating a lookalike essentially spawns an audience of people who share similar interests, behaviors, and demographics with your custom audience.

In this sense, once you've established a heartbeat for your ads campaigns and desired audience, it becomes that much easier to find people just like them. That means people just as likely to become loyal customers.

3. The Pixel Isn't Working Properly

Facebook Pixel is a tool you can use to track audiences who visit your webpage and then transmit that info to Facebook, allowing them to update your advertising algorithms. Go to your Pixels tab in Events Manager, click Create a Pixel, name your pixel, enter your website url to find easy set up optins and make your choice. Then simply copy and paste the code provided by Facebook into your website. Once you're done, Facebook ads will track, optimize, and constantly work to improve your ad performance.

Pixels will work to track actions taken on your website outside of the Facebook page, like visits and clicks, sign-ups, and purchases. If you haven't already synced up your website, it's an absolute must. If you are already using Facebook pixels, there's always a possibility the code may not be working correctly. If you've noticed your ads haven't improved over time, or are simply not performing at all, it may be time to troubleshoot your Pixel.

What if All of This Was Easy?

Facebook ads CAN work and DO work, but you have to utilize all of the tools that Facebook has to offer, and you have to manage them effectively. Doing this is no easy task, but you don't have to be a marketing expert to achieve some level of success, but it certainly helps. Fortunately, there is plenty of help for the rest of us who are less than master's in the art of the Facebook ad. Programs like Automated Ads streamline the management of mulitple ad sets and vastly improves your chance of success without losing your shirt.

There's a lot that goes into launching a successful Facebook ads campaign, but fortunately for some of us, you don't have to do it alone.

How to Convert More Sales By Using The Power of A Guarantee

Offering a guarantee is a great way to make it easier for customers to buy. It takes the risk out of the purchase for them, as it gives them an out if they don’t like the product. Psychologically, it also gives them confidence in your product - as why would you be offering a guarantee if you weren’t confident in your product? Now, to be clear, make sure you do offer a great product before you whack an awesome guarantee on it!

For example, if you have a mattress company, you could offer a guarantee and word it like this: “Try our mattresses risk free for 30 days - In the unlikely event that you’re not 100% satisfied with your mattress we will give you 100% of your money back.” A guarantee like this takes the risk out of buying for your customers and gives them confidence in your product. Most people won’t take advantage of the guarantee and the amount of returns you’ll have versus the increase in sales will be well worth it.

And having said that, it’s often best to be fairly laid back on your guarantees. If you have crazy fine print or rules to claim the refund, you’ll just encourage chargebacks, piss off your customers (potential future buyers), etc.. It pays to be nice and laid back to an extent.

So consider offering a guarantee that takes the risk out of the purchase for the customer (make sure you have a good quality product that you’re willing to back). Make your guarantee bold and visible, and the amount of extra sales should far outweigh those that make use of the guarantee.

For other tips on increasing your sales, check out his book: 50 Marketing Tips & Tricks Learned After $100 Million in Sales Over 20 Years!

A Unique Way to Increase Your Customers Spend Per Sale: The Value of Offering A Gift With Purchase

Offering a free gift, with a purchase over a certain amount (or just with any particular item), is a great way to encourage people to buy from you, but also to spend more per sale if they have to spend a certain limit. A great way to take this strategy a step further is to make your free gift a sample of other products you want to promote, or a new product you want to encourage your customers to try so as to buy in the future.

For example, beauty brands use this strategy regularly, and to great effect, offering a selection of sample size beauty products in a cute looking case, when spending over $50, $70, $100, etc. in one transaction. Not only does the free gift encourage their customers to buy more beauty products in one transaction, it also allows them a chance to introduce their customers to new products or items they may not have bought previously, without the chance to try them first.

A twist on this method that we used with great success in building a couple seven figure businesses was to offer a free gift in exchange for signing up for a monthly membership program as an upsell. It dramatically increased the conversion rates (by many, many times over). However, the key there was to have the perceived value of the bonus be more than their total investment for the first month. That makes them feel like they’re getting a no brainer offer that they’d be dumb to turn down, yet it gets them into your recurring money maker where many of them decide to stay to make you even more over time. The bonus here has to be of real value to them, which is why we often times would include a physical item as a bonus even for a digital membership program.

Look at what you can offer as a free gift to customers when they spend over a certain dollar amount in one transaction. This encourages your customer to spend more per sale and also gives you a chance to get customers trying new products, if you make those products your gift. Or put a little twist on that method and include a free gift with the purchase of any particular product you want to push, or even as a bonus to push them into a recurring membership site (physical products can work really well here for a bonus even if the main offer is a digital one).

For more great tips to increase your profits and make more money from your sales funnel, check out this tool here: BizFire's Free Funnel Maker & Analyzer

How Contests Can Be A Great Source of New Targeted Leads

Contests can be a great way to grab more leads or prospects, get feedback or testimonials from existing customers, encourage participation or attendance on webinars, and more. And, it’s not like you have to give away a car or something crazy expensive. In fact, often times cheaper giveaways will help increase your conversions even more (perhaps because they think they’ll have a better chance of winning?).

For instance, you can run an ad where you’re advertising a contest for a free drone that you’re selling. Anyone who enters you know is probably a potential prospect, as they’re interested in the drone that you sell. When you do that, you can immediately advertise a special deal you have on them in case they don’t win (and offer to refund if they do) and want to get it right away. The benefit here is that you can get dirt cheap clicks and leads when advertising this way (on places like Facebook), all while building up a very targeted list (we’ve built up some big mailing lists and businesses this way at a fraction of the cost of what our competitors pay for ads).

You can also use contests as a way to build up your testimonials. Offer to enter customers into a contest when they submit any testimonials or feedback about your product. People love contests, which is why it can be a great way to get them to take action.

So consider using contests to get lots of cheap traffic and leads to check out your offers. Or, alternatively, use contests to encourage testimonials or feedback on your products.

For more help getting targeted leads, check out the WebFire tool here Web Fire.

Pricing Strategies to Increase Your Sales

How can you price your product in a way that psychologically impacts your customer into believing they’re getting a great deal? When people see the difference, between your normal price and your sales price, it influences their decision to purchase. By having a “normal” price listed it creates the impression that the deal they are getting is awesome. They’re getting all this value at a price that is way less than “normal”. People love to believe they are getting a bargain and by listing both your normal and sale price side by side, it highlights the value they’re getting for their money.

For example, when you list your pricing, write it as, "Normally $197 -- Only $97 Today!"

You can also come up with reasons to have such discounts listed. These reasons can be mentioned next to the discounted price as well. These could be things like a holiday special, inventory closeout, end of year special pricing, manager’s special, etc.. Any reason works and makes it seem like a legitimate deal that customers have to take advantage of.

Remember, people love a bargain. So create the perception of a great deal by listing your “normal” price next to your sales price (eg, "Normally $197 -- Only $97 Today!"). Also consider names for special deals just to have a reason for that deal (like a holiday discount or manager’s special).

For more great pricing strategies, as well as little-known marketing tricks, check out this book: 50 Marketing Tips & Tricks Learned After $100 Million in Sales Over 20 Years!.

Why Some Businesses Fail?

Business is a complex concept that many fail to gasp. A business only emerges to be successful if it is implemented after thorough planning with passion, discipline, and after a great deal of research. Sustaining a business can become extremely difficult after a certain period of time due to budget constraints and poor planning. According to a survey, in the USA alone, 70% of new businesses take a hit within a decade of their conception.

A truly successful business is not one that booms and experiences a short and vibrant period of success. A truly successful company is one that enjoys sustainable success that lasts long term and withstands the test of time. Many business owners make the mistake of ignoring critical issues during the first few years, which in turn damages the business operations down the road in later years, and sometimes it's too late for the problem to be fixed.

A number of reasons can lead to your business becoming a failure. Some of the common reasons are:

1. Weak Leadership

Strong and effective leadership is important in ensuring the success of your business. An ineffective leader ends up micromanaging the employees and will try to control all aspects of the company. Unfortunately a poor leader will fail to understand that for one man, that is simply not possible. As a result, the business environment starts to crumble. A good leader is the one that imparts knowledge to the workers and tries to give specific duties to responsible people. A good leader knows how to delegate so that every aspect of that business gets taken care of quickly and efficiently.

In new businesses there are many different requirements and responsibility for different departments, and this can be difficult to manager at first. Unseasoned leaders are overwhelmed by juggling so many responsibilities and challenges and cave under the stress they can bring. Leaders need to be strong, bold, and unafraid of making quick, but calculated decisions. Good leaders also pay attention to details and are constantly looking for means of improvement. Without good, solid leadership, it doesn't matter how much money a business has or good a product it offers, it will fail.
If you don't plan for the long-haul, your business will fail before it even begins.

2. Lack Of Long-Term Investment

A far-reaching, powerful, long-term vision is essential for a good business. Many businesses make the mistake of getting overexcited during the first few years as soon as they start earning money. As a result they often fail to develop long term strategies for growth, and don't make investments in the future, clinging instead to immediate profits. Such an attitude in business will inevitably lead to poor quality products, stagnant growth and innovation, and customers who will eventually lose business. The customer base will diminish and the business will fail.

3. Lack Of Market Research

Thorough planning and research are needed at the time of launching a business. A primary reason that leads to business failure is that it gets launched without proper research and does not target a specific market. Market research is vital and should be conducted before you even think about starting a business. Even if a business enjoys success for a short period of time, ultimately, it is bound to crash without any kind of research. Without conducting research beforehand, a business might as well be stumbling around blind. How can you expect to succeed in business if you don't know anything about your hopeful customers?

A successful business is defined by the ability to predict the consumer’s requirements and behaviors. With this knowledge they can then deliver products and services that perfectly fit the needs and desires of the needs of the customers they want. You don't necessarily have to have a unique or incredible product. What you do need is to able to offer premium quality to customers who are looking for something from you in particular.

Collecting and analyzing information about market trends and procedures is important in keeping your business ahead of your competitors by offering new products, services, and deals to keep up.

4. Lack Of Customer Retention

Many businesses ignore customer retention strategies because they keep focusing on finding new customers. However, it is counterproductive strategy because old and loyal customers are important not only in increasing the sales of a business, but also popularizing it through good reviews and word-of-mouth. Not only that but old customers are easier, and cheaper to keep, compared to the process of finding new ones.

5. No Expansion Or Personal Growth

Growth does not only mean establishing a business in different locations or expanding operations. It means you also need to keep your business inspiring and innovative. Fresh talent should be welcomed in your business because they bring a lot of modern and fresh ideas to improve your business. Moreover, leaders of a business should also keep attending different seminars and training sessions to make sure they are keeping up with the times and adopting the latest entrepreneurship strategies.

If you want a deep examinations of things that may be holding your business down, you also should considering looking into programs like BizFire's Free Business Analyzer and Growth ToolTOOL, which may provide many valuable insights in a fraction of the time.

What Should Be In A Good Blog Post And Why

It would not be wrong to say that people’s interest in blogging has hit the highest point in recent years. Some people believe that blogs are dying, but more accurate they're evolving. Make no mistake, blogs are here to stay, but they're more competitive than ever. With social media, freelancing, and SEO becoming widely used around the world, the trend of blogging has dramatically increased in recent times. Millions of blogs are being written on a daily basis, but there are some basic tips and techniques which should be implemented in every excellent and engaging blog post you write.

Captivating Title and Headline

Many writers tend to ignore the fact that a good blog post is always about just one idea. There is no need to add numerous ideas and topics in a single blog post because the primary purpose of a post is to discuss and elaborate on one idea. A good title is the one that captures the readers’ attention at the very first glance and briefly describes the content of the post. It should be based on the pattern of an engaging magazine headline or a newsflash that attracts the user and forces them to click the link.

You should take time in crafting a fantastic headline for your post because it will be the first item that any readers see, and if it is not catchy enough for the user, you may lose a potential reader.

An Engaging Opening Paragraph

The importance of the first impression of a user cannot be understated. A large amount of data is available on the web that will support this. With all the content out there, it has become much more challenging to hold readers' attention. No one's going to read for an extended period of time, unless the content is unique and engaging.

An opening paragraph of a blog post is crucial to keep your reader interested in your writing. Blog posts should always start with something interesting like an amazing quote, a thought-provoking question, or a bold statement.

Targeted Audience

A good blog post is the one which targets a specific audience, depending on the topic and relevance of the post. In order to write a good post, you should know who your audience is and what they are searching for. Targeting an audience is vital to make sure your content reaches the right kind of readers who are interested in the category on which the post is written. A post that's targeted is more effective in attracting more traffic to your blog as well as keeping the readers glued.

Many blogs become successful by smartly guessing the demands and interest of their audience; however, it should be done in a professional way. Consider using different tools available on the internet to determine the requests your readers might make. Some of these tools might include Twitter Advanced Search, Keyword Tools. SEMrush, and many others.

Unique and Interesting Content

Excellent blog posts not only manage to capture the reader's attention through engaging headlines and opening sentences but also maintain interest throughout the post. The content of any blog post should be exciting and unique. Make sure the reader isn't bored and reads the the entirety of your content. Any point or opinion discussed in the post should be supported by some evidence or logic to present your thoughts clearly to the readers. High authority, trustworthy links are great when possible. Clear, comprehensive, and unambiguous writing always attracts the readers and keeps them involved.

Using Subheadings And Smaller Paragraphs

A well-presentable blog post is essential to make it easily readable for the users. Majority of the people skim through a blog post before deciding to read it, so it is important to format the blog posts properly. It can be done by dividing a post into several headings and subheadings with small paragraphs to clearly indicate the topic of each section.

Using bullet points and numbering can be done to make it easy on the reader’s eyes and keep them engaged throughout the article. Design, style, and format of the blog should be selected appropriately according to the type of blog.

Some the tips in using bullet points are:

• Treat the bullets as small headings to write concise and clear points.
• The bullets should be symmetrically formatted.
• Avoid excessive bullet points

Images

Visual content is the tried and tested method of immediately capturing the user’s attention. Captivating pictures can boost the traffic of your blog quickly and easily. You should take or design your own unique images for the blog. If you can't find or design original images yourself, there are numerous online free resources available to get the photos for your content. Consider programs like Canva, websites like Pexels, Morguefile, and Pixabay for open-sourced, copyright free photos.

SEO Optimization

SEO is an essential part of any kind of online content, including blogs. Organic searches are a huge part of the traffic blogs will see. Your content must follow the SEO best practices and the media used in your website is SEO optimized for higher ranking on the search engine result pages.

Some of the tips of optimizing a blog post are:

• Write an appropriate meta title
• The meta description should be added to clearly describe the post
• Focus keywords should be used
• Images and video should be optimized.
• Using internal links for optimization.

If you need any help in setting up a blog and writing good and captivating blog posts, you should considered Robot Author for further help with streamlining the process of creating great online content for your blog.

How To Position Your Offer To Increase Sales

In many cases it can be a wise idea to offer multiple similar packages when selling something. However, instead of offering drastically different offerings, which might make your prospects hesitate more due to not being sure which option to get, you can offer similar options where the “value buy” seems like an amazing deal.

For example, let’s say that you’re selling an SEO service to help websites rank better. If your main offer is a done for you package for $997 where you fix up their site and offer some basic consultations for them too, that can normally seem like a lot of money to some people and can make them hesitate more on if they should buy or not. However, you could offer three options where the “basic” package is for $897 and only includes a report where you identify the issues but don’t fix it for them, the “most popular” package is for $997 and includes identifying and fixing all the issues on top of three free consultation calls, and the “elite” package is for $1,997 and includes everything in the most popular package but also includes unlimited consultation calls for a month.

What this does is that almost everyone thinks that the middle, “most popular” package is the best deal. It’s only a little more than the basic package, but it includes a TON of extra value. Whereas the “elite” package is twice the price but only has some extra consultation calls that most people think they’ll never use. All of a sudden people perceive the $997 option as being cheap and a great deal! The other options aren’t meant to necessarily get sales. They’re simply meant to help make your main offer stand out more.

And by literally writing something like Basic Package, Most Popular, and Elite Package next to the options, you can help them differentiate between them even more and gravitate towards the Most Popular one.

You just have to be crystal clear with them (in bold colors and / or graphics) what the best or most popular options are, and really make it seem like it’d be dumb not to go with the offer you want them to take.

This also has the added benefit of making your “most popular” or “best” option seem cheap when it’s only a bit more than your basic package. If you didn’t have your basic package, they might think that your offer is expensive, but when they see it as being only a tinge more than the basic, their mindset changes from “that’s too expensive!” to “that’s only a bit more than this basic offering here … what a deal!”

So consider offering multiple packages like a Basic, Most Popular, and Elite Package where the value of the Most Popular one seems huge in order to make more people gravitate towards it and see it as a crazy good deal.

For more great marketing and positioning tips to increase your sales, check out this book: 50 Marketing Tips & Tricks Learned After $100 Million in Sales Over 20 Years!.

Want to Charge More for Your Services? And Still Have People Lining Up to Buy From You? Here’s How!

So how can you charge more for your services? How can you increase your price tag and still have customers lining up to buy from you? One easy way is to change your offer from a simple product/service to a done-for-you offer. What does this mean? Check out this example below.

Say, instead of charging $5 to write an article, you instead charge $497 to $997+ to write five articles, create a blog, post the articles up, optimize it for their keywords, and have a custom graphic or two. If you were to outsource a $5 article for $3, the first example only gives you a $2 profit, or if you were to write it yourself, you'd be trading $5 for 30 minutes, at best, of your time ($10 an hour on the higher end if you’re super fast).  However, if you were to offer the second, more premium example, you could outsource the articles for $15, allocate $10 for some custom graphics on Fiverr.com, and put in $25 to $50 to outsource the custom blog with SEO (blogger.com blogs, for instance, can be made in a matter of minutes).  That's a raw cost of $50 to $100 for a $400 to $950 profit. Or, if you were to do the work mostly yourself, you'd be talking about maybe 3 to 5 hours of work, easily putting you in the range of earning $100 to $200+ per hour compared to $10 per hour just selling a $5 article.

So, see what you can add to your offer, or bundle it with, to make it a more premium offer. Or, look at how you can make your offer more “done-for-you.” and price your offer respectively. The kicker is that more people like to buy a premium offer than a basic offer, as it's more appealing and more "done-for-you" than just an item that they'd have to do all the rest of the work on themselves.  And less people offer premium services/offers, so you're competing against less.

This doesn’t just apply to services either, as the same can be done for almost any kind of product out there. For instance, instead of just selling a book on how to lose weight, you could also sell a product or program that gives them daily exercises either through e-mail, a mobile app, software, etc.. So instead of someone just reading how to lose weight, you can make it more easy and “done for you” by literally giving them a way where they simply have to follow the daily tip. Or instead of selling a 50¢ apple at a gas station, one could sell a pre-sliced apple with caramel dipping sauce ready to go for $4+ (even though the raw cost is only a tinge more than the standard apple).

One great example we’ve done is instead of selling a course on how to rank on search engines and get traffic, which would be a challenge to sell even in the $25 to $50 range, we created software that helps do a lot of those tasks for people. And instead of having a challenge of selling a course for $25 to $50, we can charge $997 / year to $2,997 / year much more easily. We’re able to do that because it’s more “done for you” and involves far less time for the end user.

A similar example outside of software was with a real estate investing instructor that we know of who at one point sold several courses on how to invest in real estate. Most of these courses originally were on the lower end of the price point, but she was able to turn those “books” into “webinar trainings” and online courses and charge closer to $997 on up, but she didn’t stop there. She was able to partner with one of us to create software that helped do what she was teaching and sold it for around $4,000 a pop. But she still didn’t stop there. She then took all her teachings and tools and basically made an offer that would be as hands free as possible for the user. That was accomplished by setting up an offer where you’d be able to purchase a $25,000 package where you’d get on a bus with others, tour dozens and dozens of homes in a day that they already did the math on and knew were awesome deals, and then be able to make offers on the spot with bankers, agents, mortgage brokers, etc. all right there with you in one place. Granted, this wasn’t for the average mom and pop investor, but for some big investors, including overseas ones looking to take advantage of the U.S. market at the time, this was an opportunity to jump into it as hands free as possible. And they were willing to pay for it.

An interesting twist on making any offer more premium or done for you is that it doesn’t have to always start with your own product or service! You can find existing service providers or products out there, see how you can make them better / more “done for you,” and then try to either form a partnership with them or just use the outsourced provider to fulfill the work for a service. A few simple tweaks to their package / offer and sales pitch can turn a $5 offer into a $500 or even a $5,000 one without even having the need to make your own offer from scratch!

Now start looking at how you can apply this to your business. How can you make your offer a premium or “done-for-you” offer by adding more things to your service or bundling your products together to give more value? This then allows you to increase your prices substantially, your premium pricing reflecting your premium product.

Now you have ideas for a premium product, need help getting leads to sell this to? For help with how to get leads to promote your product or service to, check out this cool tool: Domain Lead Pro.

How To Create A Better Funnel For Your Business?

Every entrepreneur is well familiar with the importance of marketing in today’s era of extreme competition. Marketing through various channels has become essential to make sure a business is able to thrive in the market. Without a proper marketing strategy, a company will not be able to gain new customers and expand their reach.

Are you looking for tips and techniques to create better sales funnel for your business? If so, you are in the right place.

What Is A Sales Funnel?

A sales funnel is a marketing concept that provides a schematic of the process through which a customer goes through while making a purchase. The term ‘funnel’ is used as an analogy because most of the people who know about a business are its potential customers and represent the top, most significant part of the funnel. This might also be described as your “warm market” and may include those who are on the fence about your brand, or barely even giving it a thought. These people are on top. The people who can be described as committed customers are likely much fewer than those who are simply familiar with your brand. They represent the bottom part of the funnel.

The following are the five essential steps in constructing an excellent sales funnel for your business:

1. An Attractive Landing Page

The landing page of your company’s website is the first and best chance of impressing your potential customers. It should reflect the best qualities of your business and convince the customers to utilize your products and services. An excellent landing page is the one that will encourage the readers to sign-up for updates or notifications from your website. In this way, you can establish a regular and continuous interaction with your potential customers, allowing you to work them into different parts your funnel.

2. Give Front-End Offers

An enticing front-end offer should be made clear and visible on the front page of your website. The offers should be adapted to the market’s requirements, consumers mindset, and modern marketing trends. This strategy is often called the "pre-selling" as at this stage of the funnel; you are convincing your potential customers to buy your products or services.

3. Add Back-End Offers (Upselling)

An option of expanding the shopping cart should be provided to the customers at the back end. It means that the customers who have just bought or are about to buy a product or service from your business should be given the option of upgrading their order. For instance, you can create a unique offer that will provide even more benefits to the customers at an affordable cost. The strategy of upselling is often used in the funnels to enhance sales.

4. Downselling

The option of downselling is the opposite of the upselling strategy. The technique is essential in the selling funnel as it facilitates the customers' experience with your business. Many companies make the mistake of thinking downselling to be a failure of the business or as a negative step.

However, it is important to make sure people with strict budget constraints can utilize your services efficiently. The budget of your customers can keep changing due to many reasons, so your business should be considerate towards your customers by providing cheaper and reasonable offers, including the option of downselling.

5. Steady Marketing

The last important strategy of designing an efficient sales funnel is to keep your marketing steady. It is essential to follow up with your latest customers, take feedback from them, and make sure they are happy with your products and services.

To establish a good relationship with your customers, you can offer a rewards program for your customers. Different packages and offers can be introduced under this program which will keep the customers coming to meet a specific threshold of the program and get rewards from your business. Moreover, you will be able to keep the customers informed about new deals of the business and increase sales.

The five steps listed above are some of the many strategies that can be adopted by the firms to develop a better sales funnel. Other than these steps, every business should evaluate the type of their business and the targeted audience to select appropriate strategies to create a funnel for the business.

If you need help in marketing your business and creating a better sales funnel for your business, you can check out the BizFire's Free Funnel Maker & Analyzer program to get help in this whole process. It makes your funnel strategies so much easier.

Why Your Website Never Ranks Well

In terms of cost-efficiency, the most crucial method for attracting traffic to your website is through organic searches. They allow you to reach people who don't even know about your site initially but are searching for a specific product or service related to your website. The primary factor of the success in organic searches boils down to the ranking of your website on search engine results pages (SERPs).
There are a ton of factors that may contribute to your website may not be ranking well on search engines. Some of these reasons are:

A Slow Website

Millions of search results are available to the user as soon as they enter a keyword into a search engine like Google. With such a massive amount of data available on the Web, it's become challenging to hold users' attention for extended periods of time.

Pages that load faster not only provide excellent user experiences but also play a huge role in SEO ranking. Site speed is an official search ranking algorithm in Google that should be kept in mind during website development and management. If your website is not being ranked well, you must ensure that it can be loaded quickly on any desktop along with mobile devices. Mobile site speed is just as important.

Ambiguous Keywords and Title Tags

Ranking your website will become difficult; it is not clear to search engines what kind of products, services, and solutions you are providing to your users and their concerns. Content must be made clear. Make it easily understandable people, what they are reading. The use of appropriate keywords is a necessity in achieving clarity in your content.
Title tags are a crucial part of website ranking. Tags that start with a critical keywords perform much better than those in which the keyword is placed in different positions. Make sure that the title tags of your website are appropriate and work with the content of your website.

Similarly, many publishers make the mistake of writing an ambiguous descriptions and headings that are not related to the content of the page. As a result, such pages are penalized in the ranking.

Unoptimized Content

Content optimization is essential for the ranking of a website. It includes the optimization of the written content as well as images, audio, and other visuals used on a website. Many people use Google to search visual content, and if your website does not have optimized images, it is unlikely to be ranked high on the SERPs. High-quality images, videos, infographics, and other media content must be used to provide a good signal to Google for more top content ranking.

Poor Quantity and Quality of Inbound Links

Generally, a large number of links from other websites to your pages will ensure a high ranking of your website. The quality of the links also matters in this regard, so the links should originate from authority websites.
Irregular Publishing

It is not enough to just publish an optimized post on your website every week or so. Instead, the publishing should be regular and consistent to boost website rankings.

It has been shown that many websites are don't rank well because of irregular publications. Usually, SEO ranking experts suggest uploading at least two to three high-quality posts per week. Regular updates from your website help in engaging your audience, and the traffic will increase too.

The latest content on your sites makes it clear to search engines that you are still active on the website and working on it to make the content fresh and relevant. Moreover, the material should be adapted according to the circumstances of the publication time. In other words, stay up to date. This way, you're most likely to rank very high on search engines. Why? Because your page will provide relevant content about what's going on NOW.

SEO Practices are not being followed

SEO is one of the hottest topics in website management today. Many courses, books, blogs, and guides are available on the internet about the best practices of SEO. Having an SSL certification on your website, using suitable title tags, uploading relevant content, writing engaging meta descriptions, and implementing on-page SEO practices are some of the many latest SEO trends that increase the ranking of your website.

The focus of strong SEO is how content of your website will stand out in the search engines to ensure its ranking improves. If you've had trouble ranking your website, you probably haven't implemented good SEO practices.
If you have a website that's not seeing the ranks you desire consider programs like Web Fire. You'll be able to root out issues with your website and substantially improve its rankings in a fraction of the time and cost it would entail if you tried to go without.

How to Increase Your Prices and Boost Your Business’s Profits

People often overlook this very simple, very easy way to increase their business’s profits: increase your prices. Most people tend to undercharge for their services, so try increasing your prices, as a test, and see what happens. Funnily enough, most people perceive something that is higher priced as being of higher quality, which can encourage people to buy your product or service. As you increase your prices, you’re also receiving more per sale, increasing your profit margin. Take this strategy a step further and target higher value clients.

For example, if you run a business coaching company, and you currently charge $200 an hour for your time, increase your rates to $1000. With the perceived higher quality and value in your coaching, target businesses that make a lot of money vs. those that are barely getting by. In this example, one client would be worth 5 of your clients in the past. Not only have you raised your hourly rate, but you’ve decreased the amount of work you need to do to earn the same amount of money.

An interesting example we’ve had before is when we’ve sold courses or software for $7 vs. $497 vs. $997+. Although the $7 price gets the most conversions, the $997 price would almost always make tons more money. You just have to make sure you do a good job of showing the value!

So test out this simple tip and try increasing your prices and targeting customers who have more money to spend on your product/service.

For more easy ways to grow your profits and increase your sales check out this book: 50 Marketing Tips & Tricks Learned After $100 Million in Sales Over 20 Years!.

A Unique Way to Increase Your Customers Spend Per Sale: The Value of Offering A Gift With Purchase

Offering a free gift, with a purchase over a certain amount (or just with any particular item), is a great way to encourage people to buy from you, but also to spend more per sale if they have to spend a certain limit. A great way to take this strategy a step further is to make your free gift a sample of other products you want to promote, or a new product you want to encourage your customers to try so as to buy in the future.

For example, beauty brands use this strategy regularly, and to great effect, offering a selection of sample size beauty products in a cute looking case, when spending over $50, $70, $100, etc. in one transaction. Not only does the free gift encourage their customers to buy more beauty products in one transaction, it also allows them a chance to introduce their customers to new products or items they may not have bought previously, without the chance to try them first.

A twist on this method that we used with great success in building a couple seven figure businesses was to offer a free gift in exchange for signing up for a monthly membership program as an upsell. It dramatically increased the conversion rates (by many, many times over). However, the key there was to have the perceived value of the bonus be more than their total investment for the first month. That makes them feel like they’re getting a no brainer offer that they’d be dumb to turn down, yet it gets them into your recurring money maker where many of them decide to stay to make you even more over time. The bonus here has to be of real value to them, which is why we often times would include a physical item as a bonus even for a digital membership program.

Look at what you can offer as a free gift to customers when they spend over a certain dollar amount in one transaction. This encourages your customer to spend more per sale and also gives you a chance to get customers trying new products, if you make those products your gift. Or put a little twist on that method and include a free gift with the purchase of any particular product you want to push, or even as a bonus to push them into a recurring membership site (physical products can work really well here for a bonus even if the main offer is a digital one).

For more great tips to increase your profits and make more money from your sales funnel, check out this tool here: BizFire's Free Funnel Maker & Analyzer

Five Marketing Tips To Drastically Improve Your Sales

With the passage of time, consumers have become highly conscious of the marketing strategies being used by businesses all over. Most consumers are able to differentiate between an authentic business and one that is exaggerated and hyped through artificial marketing. As a result, people tend to spend their hard-earned earnings on very particular products and brands.

In such a highly competitive business environment, businesses face the difficulty of increasing their sales, or even worse, just to maintain a steady sales income. As a result, the capital of such companies starts dwindling within a few years, and it can lead to the catastrophic failure of their business model.

If you want to keep your head above those choppy waters, you need to keep in mind the following five marketing tips.
These tips should be adopted by all businesses to drastically improve their sales:

1. Identify The Market And The Problems.

Not enough can be said of the great importance in choosing an appropriate market for the kind of business you run. After you've established your business, it's important to find out the problems your desired customers are facing in that particular market. Then you need to analyze those market problems in detail. Then you need to figure out exactly how your business solves that problem and sell that solution. Your business should emphasize developing modern, durable, and unique solutions to customers’ issues.

It should go without saying that the products and the services offered by your business must possess the highest of quality. However, offering premium quality is not enough. It absolutely must stand out from the crowd to really make the customer fall in love with your business.

2. Develop A Unique Selling Proposition

Your business must have some unique selling proposition (USP) to make it stand out from your competition. If you keep offering the same services and products as your competitors in the market, your business will have fewer chances of surviving in the fierce business conditions. You should research your competitive businesses and offer more advantages to your customers to keep them hooked to your company’s services.

Moreover, with the launch of different businesses on a daily basis, it has become difficult to establish a loyal customer base. A steady and continuous form of communication with your customers is important to keep your business and new products fresh in their minds. You should take feedback from your customers and adapt your workings and services according to their requirements.

3. Effective Social Media Marketing

As often stated in all marketing strategies, social media has become a an integral part of marketing for any kind of business. It is now considered to be the best tool of advertisement for companies because you can target specific markets, areas, and people via an active social media marketing campaign. Moreover, you can get better advertising for a fraction of the cost compared to other marketing techniques and advertising platforms.

Through social media platforms, you can form good relations with your potential and existing customers and keep them updated about your business and any new products. Social media can also be used to answer any queries of your customers quickly and get good reviews from your customers. Authentic and live comments from other customers will encourage the audience of your social media pages to avail your products or services, leading to drastic improvement in sales.

Other advantages of social media include:

• It provides various channels for your business to sell your products. Many social media pages now provide you with the option of selling directly from your Facebook page to facilitate your social media consumers and increase sales.
• It is extremely cost-efficient to run a social media page and keep customers engaged and updated.
• Customer retention is improved via social media by keeping customers engaged and informed

4. Select An Appropriate Price

Selecting the right price for a product or a service can more difficult than expected for many. However, it is necessary to remember that the price you set should be affordable by your targeted customers. Market and audience research (https://marketingland.com/research-audience-90118) and targeting play a huge role in this case.

You can research your competitors (https://www.intechnic.com/blog/top-ten-tools-to-research-your-competition-on-the-web/) and analyze the reasons behind the prices set by them. Try to set the price with minimum profits during the first few months of the business until it has found its footing in the Market. After you have established a loyal customer base, you can revise the charges appropriately according to market conditions.

5. Customer Retention

Targeting new customers should not be the only focus of the companies as retaining an old customer is also important to establish a loyal customer base and increase the sales quickly. There are many ways to target customer retention, for instance by connecting with your customers on social media or through blogging and email up to dates to keep them informed on updates and special offers. Many companies also retain customers by creating rewards programs that provide your most loyal customers with exclusive deals, and rewards them with special offers and discounts for shopping at your store.

If you want to read more about marketing tips, check out the 50 Marketing Tips & Tricks Learned After $100 Million in Sales Over 20 Years! for a detailed explanation of the marketing strategies.

How Taking Action Can Get You Leads

Instead of waiting for leads to come to you, go to them! Many people just build an opt-in page or a squeeze page and wait for leads to sign-up or reach out to them - so instead of waiting for people to find your store and buy from you - actively go out and find prospects.

Look for questions that are being asked, which are relevant to what your business provides, on forums, Q&A sites (like Yahoo Answers or Quora) and social media such as Facebook and Twitter.

Now take a couple of minutes to answer those questions, making sure you provide value first and foremost. This will help you gain extra exposure for your business, help build you up as an authority in your niche, start to build trust between you and possible customers and potentially land you some sales.

For example, if you have an SEO service, look for questions on the best ways to optimize websites. Then you could leave an answer such as, “Here are 3 tips I find work well…(insert your tips here). If you’re after more information, I help people with their SEO, through information and doing it all for them, and here’s a link to an article I wrote listing 17 tested ways to improve your search engine optimization.” You’ve already given great information and value in your answer, making people more likely to click through to your site.

Another example would be if you were a chiropractor, you can find people complaining about back pain and offer a couple tips that you think might help them, followed by an offer to stop by your clinic for a free initial adjustment or consultation.

Or if you were in the weight loss niche, you could find people asking questions on the best ways to lose weight, give them a few tips, and then link to a longer video or blog post of yours mentioning even more tips perhaps with an offer to sign-up for a free newsletter, which can be used to try to drive them into your main offer.

One last example, of an awesome way to go to leads instead of waiting for them to come to you, was when I first started out online, I decided to just be an affiliate for some diamond sites (where I’d earn 5% to 15% per sale through my link). I would search the internet for leads of people asking questions on diamonds, trying to see if they found a good deal, etc., and then offer to do a free analysis for them. I would often times end up finding better deals through one of the sites I was an affiliate for (sometimes I’d even have a coupon or discount through the site), pass on my affiliate link to the specific diamond, and make a nice commission when they bought it. All this was done while coming off as being a super nice guy helping them out (even if I mentioned that it was an affiliate link).

Don’t underestimate the power of going to leads instead of waiting for them to come to you! In fact, it’s important to note that this doesn’t just have to be done with consumer leads. You can apply the same methods to finding other businesses to partner with, for instance, and proactively reaching out to them to try to land a deal. Or even proactively going out to leads in the media to see if they’d want to run an article or story on something that you’re an expert in related to your niche. Even taking just an hour or two a week doing this can have huge benefits for your business.

Although you can manually search for leads out on the internet, if you get serious enough about this technique, there are tools out there like WebFire.com that can help you do this and more.

Go looking for leads, instead of waiting for them to come to you. Look on forums, Q&A sites (like Yahoo Answers) and social media (such as Facebook, Twitter, etc.) to find questions being asked that are relevant to your offer. Answer those questions, providing good value, to increase your exposure and potentially make sales.

For help with finding leads after what you offer, you can check out a demo of WebFire's tools here and grab a special deal!  Web Fire

Make It Easy For Customers To Buy: How Offering Free Trials/Demonstrations Can Boost Your Sales

Sometimes it’s hard to see the benefit of something we haven’t seen in action or tried first. Offering a free trial period, or a demonstration of your product, can be a great way to alleviate a potential customer’s fears and make them confident the product will work for them. Also, once someone has tried something free they often feel obliged to reciprocate by purchasing from you - it’s the principle of reciprocity in action.

For example, if you have a software product, offer a free 30 day trial, so customers can see how it works, use it and see the results they get from it. You’ll get customers who may have sat on the fence or not purchased previously all of a sudden be ready to buy because they can get a chance to experience how great the product can actually be for them.

There’s one tip we’ve learned over the years that can greatly increase your retention rate here (or essentially how many stay on past the trial period), and that’s to offer a free trial, but require them to enter their credit card or payment details. Instead of charging them, which can decrease the conversion rates even more, just authorize their credit cards for $1 or so (this is typically where their card temporarily sees a charge for like $1 that never officially goes through – similar to what many gas stations do when you pay at the pump). If you use Paypal, you don’t even have to worry as much about this and can just do a straight trial for X days that automatically charges once the trial ends (Paypal is typically very good at getting money from customers, whereas for credit cards you often have to authorize them to make sure that they’re legit to start with).

You can also use trials as “special offers” whenever you want to run a sale. For instance, if you regularly sell a software tool for $997 / year, you can have a special offer where you do a free trial for 14 or 30 days. This can get a ton of people who’ve been on the fence to jump on this offer, as they know that the only other way for them to try out the software would be to pay $997 upfront.

So make it easy for customers to see the value in your product and purchase from you by offering a free trial or demonstration of your product. You’ll get a chance to make them feel comfortable with your product and see how great it is for them, before having to lay down their hard-earned cash. This in turn leads to more sales, especially from people who may have been skeptical about your product without the chance to try it first.

For more tips on sales and converting leads, check out this book 50 Marketing Tips & Tricks Learned After $100 Million in Sales Over 20 Years!.

How To Use Social Media Effectively

According to a survey conducted in the United States a stunning 90% of businesses were active in some way on social media in 2017. Facebook alone, has close to 1 billion users, equal to the total population of India, all over the globe.

The world has progressed to the point where everyone wants everything right at their fingertips. They want what they want constantly and they want what they want NOW. That is the number one rule of social media. If it's used effectively the rewards are great. You want a social media page that

• Is active
• Has a large, engaged, and growing following
• Speaks to a large, relevant audience that translates into business conversions.

Using social media in a way that accomplishes these things can be tricky, but it also can be done.

Consider some of the following guidelines:

1: Headlines Matter:

You may have heard this famous proverb “don’t judge a book by its cover” but let's be honest with ourselves. We are visual creatures who often act on the first thing we see, and authors seem to agree with marketing experts that the cover very much matters. Creating effective social media headlines takes some practice. Headlines should be catchy, attention-grabbing, and the appropriate length depending on your platform.

2: Compelling Visuals:

What we see is more important online than what we hear or read. Visuals play a vital role in all social media campaigns. The use of compelling pictures and video material brings more value and attention to your posts, especially when compared to plain text. Visual posts are becoming more important on every form of social media, but many platforms like Pinterst, Snapchat, and instagram rely on visuals entirely, and their popularity continues to soar.

3: Adapt According To Your Platform

Whether you're working with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or any other social media site, each platform is going to come with a set of features. Most sites allow you yo post links, videos, and images along with your engaging text posts. Each platform is different, however. Instagram for instance offers various filters and focuses primarily on posts related to graphics, photos, and other visual posts. The nature of Instagram makes it ideal for sharing art. Twitter on the other hand, while it allows some of these features, is better for shorter blurbs and other text-based posts. Character limits require to you get your information out there short and quick, and as a far more active program you have to post CONSTANTLY to keep up with your following and your competition.

Whatever platform you're using, you'll need to familiarize yourself with the individual social media site and adapt accordingly.

3: Trending and Timely:

Twitter perhaps began this concept, but Facebook and other platforms are adopting the concept of trends and hashtags as well. It's important to follow what's going with these trends, as well as what people are talking about on social media in general. Your posts must be timely, and fall in sync with current trends to remain engaging and capture the attention of your audience. Give them content that's relevant.

You'll have to experiment with your content strategy as far as when to post. Some audiences and topics trend at different times of day depending on the behaviors of their audience. What are their work schedules and daily routines? Try to pinpoint the times that they're most on and post accordingly. This may require some trial and error at first, but as you tweak your posting schedule you'll want to adjust and post mostly during the times that get the most engagement (likes, clicks, comments, shares etc)

Of course most of us aren't available to post on social media 24/7, fortunately you may not have to. Many features like Facebook's auto-scheduling program can make your life much easier as they allow you to schedule your posts in advance.

4: Cast A Net Of Posts:

Using a net can catch more fish for you than using a fishing rod. Its wider and has more reach. The same concept can in some ways be applied to social media. The algorithms of your visibility very much depend on the activity of your page. The more you post the more likely you are to be seen. One or two posts a day is good, but at some point it may not be enough. You want relevant content your audience will appreciate, so don't just spam post, but have your content planned in mass and in advanced. Five or more posts a day may be ideal to start, but you can experiment with the number of posts you plan as you measure engagement.

4: Interact With Users:

Interaction with your users is an important, but neglected step in social media management and influence. First, many pages like Facebook measure your pages response times and rates and will sometimes post them publicly. You want to be as responsive and interactive as possible in your profiles inbox system, and even on your posts.

Users are more likely to engage if they feel connected with your brand on a personal level. Answer questions, respond to criticism, and above all, be friendly and polite. Let your users know there's real people behind your page.

5: Keep The Content Coming

One of the biggest struggles for many businesses and users in social media is consistency. Creating content is more tedious than you would think, but it has to be done all the time. New content every day, fresh and original, is one of the biggest keys to success in social media.

Not everyone has time for content posting and creation, especially in a way that keeps up with the demands. With content constantly rolling out, you need to keep your pages busy. Luckily many automated programs like News Poster make the job a lot easier for those who are willing to invest.

How to Access A Whole New Set of Leads By Partnering With Other Businesses

Looking for new customers? Or a way to make a whole bunch more sales? You’re going to love this strategy then! Think about other business that you could partner with, that you don’t directly compete with, where you could offer value that will make you both a lot of money. Think about the customers a business already has, and whether those same customers would be interested in your own product or service. Now, think of how you can make your offer a win-win for you and the other business. This is a great way to access a whole new database of potential clients for yourself, and give the business you’re partnering with an opportunity to upsell their current clients by offering them your service (for a cut of your fee).

For example, if you sell homemade candles, reach out to boutiques to see if they'd be willing to sell your candles (even without them buying them first - just sharing in the sales). Or if you sell a social media management or SEO service, reach out to web design firms that might not offer your services to their clients, but offer them a good chunk of the sales PLUS offer to do all the work, support, etc. for their customers AND let them market it as their own (a win-win for both).  Or if you're a programmer or have a tool of your own, reach out to market leaders in your industry who might be able to sell a lot of your product and let them white label it (sell it as their own) for a good cut of the profits while you just maintain it and do support for it. One good deal here can be more than a full-time living or a good little business all by itself.

We’ve started six and seven figure businesses by making such deals, and it all starts with just reaching out when you know both sides can benefit.

So have a look for other businesses that you don’t directly compete with that you could partner with. Then look at how them selling your product can be a win-win, whether it’s a share in sales, fulfilling a need their clients have but they don’t offer (and allowing them to market the service as their own) or white labeling your product for their clients.

To find businesses to partner with, check out our business lead tool here: Macroleads

How to Create Repeat Customers Using Future-Use Coupons

How can you encourage customers to make their second, third, and fourth purchase with you? How can you entice them to keep coming back and buying from you, changing them from a once off customer to a regular? Future-use coupons are one great strategy to employ to incentivize customers to make that next buy.

So how do future-use coupons work? When customers make a purchase, you give them a coupon for a dollar value or percentage off their next purchase. This is called a “future-use” coupon. It encourages your customers to come back and purchase from you again, and keeps you in their mind. You can even make receiving the coupon dependent on spending a certain amount, to encourage customers to spend more per sale.

For example, if you have tennis shop, you could have an offer where if they spend over $100 today they get $25 off their next purchase of $100 or more. Not only does this give an incentive for your customers to spend $100 now, it also gets you an additional $100 sale next time they come in wanting to use their coupon.

So encourage customers to come back to you with “future-use” coupons, where, if they spend a certain amount with you today, they get a percentage or dollar discount next time they make a purchase with you.

Want more great tips on customer retention and turning your clients into repeat purchasers? Check out this book 50 Marketing Tips & Tricks Learned After $100 Million in Sales Over 20 Years!

Why Content Is Still King

One common and popular phrase that has stood the test of time is "content is king" why? Because it has remained true despite hundreds of other factors like SEO practices, social media, and many other modern trends influencing online businesses and marketing. SEO experts have begun to adopt the philosophy that content is the most crucial factor of the ranking of any website.

Despite the fact that the importance of content is emphasized in many high places, too many aspiring online entrepreneurs have not fully understood and embraced this idea. Many will miss out on the benefits that great and original content can bring to a page. There are many to consider.

First of all, though, it is essential to be familiar with what content actually is. There is no short answer to this question. Content is everywhere and it's used in everything. In blogs, posts and articles you can find it along with web content like an “about us” page or a page describing products and services, all of which are part of the page's content. Moreover, the posts on social media accounts are also considered content.

Many companies and businesses think that uploading content regularly and in large amounts alone will improve the visibility of their sites, ranking, and ultimately, sales. It may be true to some extent that posting content regularly is essential, but it is also important that the content produced is unique and engaging to visitors.

Good content performs the following functions:

• Helps in branding of the business.
• Improves the search engine result page (SERP) ranking of the website.
• Increases customer engagement and attracts more traffic to the site.
• Generates leads and sales.

Types of Content

As discussed earlier, content is much more than just words on a website. It encompasses all those materials that are shareable and easily readable by the users, which will lead to the expansion of the customer base and better brand building.

Some types of content might include:

Written Content

Articles, press releases, academic reports, papers, and blog posts are all written material. Many modern types of content have emerged in the last few years, but written content is still considered an essential type of content because it is imperative in publishing different material. Moreover, it acts as a lead magnet and possible sales for a business.

Social Media Content

Social media content has the ability to reach a massive number of people anywhere in the world quickly and easily. All Facebook posts, tweets, LinkedIn posts, and Instagram media is considered to be social media content because it is shareable.

Multimedia Content

The reach of multimedia content has increased manifold. It is imperative to share visual content and even videos to keep your audience engaged. Thanks to rapidly growing video contributors on YouTube and Vimeo, the influence of video is growing. Different types of videos like interviews, teaching videos, product reviews, vlogs, reviews, and gaming videos are being uploaded daily and in heavy volume. These trends are increasing the importance of introducing different types of multimedia content, especially engaging videos.

It's important to discuss these types of content because even though the definition of content has evolved due to advances in technology and modern trends, content is still king. Why? Because it is used in and by all different types of business and all across various platforms. As the internet world of business becomes more competitive, it's becoming more important to use content as a way of spreading your message on any platform.

Customer Engagement

It is imperative that companies and entrepreneurs keep their customers updated and engaged in their business. The content should be unique and engaging for your users. Engaging content draws people and allows your brand to build a stronger bond with the customers. Moreover, good content will be able to attract traffic to your website, even if you have not implemented any other advanced strategy. Overall, it will increase your ranking on search engines, and customer engagement will improve.

Content marketing is a vital part of business success. Companies that have excellent content are naturally more attractive to more inbound links and traffic, and hence the chances visitors buying your products or services will also be on the rise.

The Statistical Importance Of Content

Different researchers and their analysis of the data have shown that content marketing is extremely important in customer engagement, expanding the customer base of a business, and running a successful blog. For example,

• Around 70% of the markets claim that excellent content leads to more engagement with the users.
• Social media content has become highly effective in B2C businesses
• According to a survey, 85% of people prefer brands that have entertaining content like personalized stories, solutions, and experiences.
• Many people find new businesses and companies via Twitter and Facebook.
• Video creators on YouTube have become a huge chunk of social media influencers as their content is seen by millions of people all around the globe.
• Overall, great content is necessary for a successful business, and it is much easier and cost-efficient to produce excellent content. Hence, content marketing is cheaper than traditional marketing, and it generates more leads than conventional marketing techniques.

Producing various types of content and implementing content marketing strategies can seem very complicated and intimidating. Fortunately, there are many programs out there that can help. Robot Author simplifies the process of creating engaging content to attracting more users to your sites.

Pricing Strategies to Increase Your Sales

How can you price your product in a way that psychologically impacts your customer into believing they’re getting a great deal? When people see the difference, between your normal price and your sales price, it influences their decision to purchase. By having a “normal” price listed it creates the impression that the deal they are getting is awesome. They’re getting all this value at a price that is way less than “normal”. People love to believe they are getting a bargain and by listing both your normal and sale price side by side, it highlights the value they’re getting for their money.

For example, when you list your pricing, write it as, "Normally $197 -- Only $97 Today!"

You can also come up with reasons to have such discounts listed. These reasons can be mentioned next to the discounted price as well. These could be things like a holiday special, inventory closeout, end of year special pricing, manager’s special, etc.. Any reason works and makes it seem like a legitimate deal that customers have to take advantage of.

Remember, people love a bargain. So create the perception of a great deal by listing your “normal” price next to your sales price (eg, "Normally $197 -- Only $97 Today!"). Also consider names for special deals just to have a reason for that deal (like a holiday discount or manager’s special).

For more great pricing strategies, as well as little-known marketing tricks, check out this book: 50 Marketing Tips & Tricks Learned After $100 Million in Sales Over 20 Years!.

How Offering A Free Plus Shipping Offer Can Build Your List And Lead To Big Upsells

One of the best things you can do to get people to take action, especially online, is to offer a free plus shipping & handling offer. These offers have an obvious HUGE value because nothing beats free, and by having them pay a small S&H fee, they still see the value in the free product, despite how often times your products’ costs might be completely covered in this S&H fee.

For instance, if you go to a site like Aliexpress.com, which specializes in drop-shipping products of all sorts, you can find lots of jewelry, pet toys, gadgets, etc. for under $2 that already include free shipping. Some of these have perceived values of easily $10 to $30 or more.

That means that your customers get an awesome deal by thinking they got the bargain of a lifetime, while you also get a steal of a deal by getting a new customer at better than no cost to you (if the product and shipping costs $2, for instance, you’re up $3 in profit just by charging a $5 S&H fee).

Obviously, it’s hard to strike it rich at a few bucks at a time, which is why you want to treat these offers as only an entry point into your sales funnel/offers. You want to offer them additional upsells, other products/services on your backend, and take full advantage of their e-mail address to reach out with additional offers in the future, as everything from that point on could be pure profit for you (at least in terms of no advertising costs).

We’ve started entire businesses around this model. You can really up your profits here, like we did, by not only getting lots of front-end buyers in with an amazing free plus S&H deal, but by then offering several related upsells, including a recurring one with a big bonus worth more than the first payment, which can skyrocket your conversions into your biggest money makers in your funnel. This all sets you up to get great conversions both on your cheap front-end to get a lot of buyers, but also get great conversions on your upsells that make your real money. Never underestimate the power of getting something for free or a big bonus with a smaller purchase.

So consider an impulse buy product with a free plus S&H offer where you don’t lose money after collecting the small S&H charge.  Then upsell additional offers to make the most of your money.

For more help mapping out your upsells and sales funnels, so you can look at how you can increase your business, check out this software that helps you build out your sales funnel. BizFire's Free Funnel Maker & Analyzer

How Offering A Premium Support Service Can Increase Your Profits And Margins

You’ve probably bought electronics before and been offered the purchase an additional warranty. Or maybe you’ve purchased furniture before and been offered a white glove service to deliver and setup your new couch.

These are all examples of premium support services that can have very large profit margins, so even if only a smaller percentage of customers take you up on them, they can add a lot to your bottom line.

Some of these premium support services can be at little to no cost to you. For instance, one business we’ve seen had a warranty offer where you could get free replacement charger cables forever on your phone, if they ever fail, for a small one time extra fee as long as you just cover the small shipping and handling fee. However, these cables have such huge margins anyway that the small S&H fee literally covered the cost of the cables and the shipping. The “warranty” that was sold was essentially 100% pure profit, despite how it would appear to be an awesome deal for the buyers (paying $5 for S&H instead of $29 for a new cable sounds like, and is, a pretty good deal).

You can even sell access to one on one help, a Facebook group page for extra (and faster) help, etc. Some of these offers you can literally put together in a few minutes, yet some people will naturally buy them just because they think they might have a use for it one day.

Another example would be offering faster support, faster shipping, faster service, etc. All of these can have huge margins for little to no extra work!

So brainstorm at least a couple of extra premium support services that you can offer your buyers (like extra warranties, faster support, faster service, etc.) that come with huge margins despite not really increasing your costs much, if at all.

To find out more tweaks that could drastically change and increase your business, check out our business analyzing tool here BizFire's Free Business Analyzer and Growth Tool.